


bedlam boys

by traveller



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-30
Updated: 2004-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-15 13:17:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traveller/pseuds/traveller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <cite>Mad dog ought to be put down down down</cite>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	bedlam boys

Mad dog ought to be put down down down down down down down down down down down down and for two days he only saw in simple bright children's colours, in red blood and green magic and yellow yellow yellow yellow rage was yellow like bile, like piss, like lemon cake and then there was a sound like his heart stopped beating a sound like the end of all sound a sound like the first sound and he saw only in newsprint colours ever after, like a dog, a dog, truly, in the end.

If you feed them they'll leave you alone if you feed them they'll leave you alone worse than dogs curs strays jackals eating scraps of me scraps of mine scraps of us but they always come back always always always and maybe what they said was true, his blood was black, his blood was Black, and his laughter was white noise.

He couldn't remember what colour revenge was, but he was pretty sure that love was some shade of chocolate, and he knew what it smelled like and he knew what it tasted like and he knew it when he saw it and he knew the weight of it and what it cost. He knew it, he did, he knew it, and called it by name.

The first night he washed with water because he hadn't touched hot water in so long and he asked if water had always been that colour and got a sad smile in return. "It hasn't got any colour," Remus answered softly. Sirius shook his head, and put his hand in the tub, watched the stuff slip over his fingers. "No, it does. I just forgot the name of it."

In his father's house there was once a clock, a clock with a face hands sharp eyes that told the time in every city everywhere all at once and before he forgot he remembered asking it all the times in all the places he could think of and before he remembered he forgot that there was one place with no time no no no no time left no before no after no future because you'll never get out and no past because they eat it and if you feed them they'll leave you alone if you feed them they'll... no. No. They'll _know._

The blood on his hands is black the blood on his hands is his the blood the blood the blood he remembers.

He remembers shoes and robes and how to buckle a belt and he straightens his hair with his hands because he doesn't remember the word for the thing for your hair for the thing that sits there with teeth and he considers biting it to see if it bites back. 

He remembers quill and ink and the shapes of letters, some of them look like animals and some of them like trees, and he remembers his name which means one thing and looks like another. There is a clock and a calendar and no time, but he asks them anyway, what day is it what hour is it day time night morning Wednesday Thursday until Remus puts his hands firmly on Sirius's face and whispers, "Today. Today."

::

It's rough and it's messy and they hurt each other with their hipbones if not their hands; it's over too fast and he cries softly in Remus' neck, because he remembers it differently, he remembers sweetness and heat and a different ache that didn't feel so close to wrong. "Wrong," he whispers, "It isn't supposed to be ugly, I remember." Remus cradles him, Remus smells like October, and says, "No, no, it wasn't, isn't, no, never that."

He wakes screaming, flailing at the weight by his side, something someone breathing there, and Remus holds him down holds him close until he stops shaking snarling snapping. Remus holds him, he remembers that, he remembers, and weeps again.

The north wind does blow and we shall have snow and what will poor robin do then, poor thing? He'll sit in a barn to keep himself warm, and hide his head under his wing, poor thing, his wing his broken broken wing. Sing me once, sing me twice, sing a song of beggars and mice and rats and liars and rats and no, not that not that no, but someday he will see green again.

There was a rat, for want of stairs, went down a rope to say his prayers. There was a rat. There was a rat, remember.

It takes sunrise and a sunset and another sunrise to remember how to lie with words on parchment, how to shape the animal letters and the tree letters into nice things for the Boy to read, for the Boy to feel safe. All is well, safe as houses, mens sana in corpore sano. It sounds like a spell, but really it's just a wish.

When his shaking hands ruin another try Remus brings him clean pages without asking, one and two and three; holds his fingers on the quill and guides the ink into the right shapes. He leans back into the warmth behind him, smells something burnt and something sweet. "I can't do it," he sighs, and Remus' fingers flex and squeeze.

"Yes, you can. You can, you must."

No words inside the walls no words no books no letters no nothing and they didn't talk, did they, no words no words except what he wrote on the stones himself with ink he made himself from himself, words he remembered, important words _boy rat black blood hate end dark kill_ but not secret words _wolf dog love trust light safe moon_ not secret things that he hid in the darkness, hid in his mouth because they didn't talk.

Hoddley poddley puddle and fogs, cats are to marry the poodle dogs. Cats in blue jackets and dogs in red hats, but what will become of the mice and the rats? What will become when becoming is done?

::

They come in the night sometimes sometimes while you're sleeping sometimes while you're dreaming of memories of dreams of roast chicken and pumpkin juice and they take it, they take it all, and there are no tastes inside the walls except the walls taste and there's bread and water and water and bread but even the mold on the loaf tastes like stone.

Some have meat that cannot eat, and some can eat that want it want it taste it. Justice is vengeance is everything is right is his right and it will crunch like bone, it will ooze like marrow, it will taste like sweetmeat sweet sweet sweetest meat.

Remus puts food in front of him and he must remember to use the stabbing thing the slicing thing, yes, fork and knife, yes. Don't pick up the joint and tear at it with your teeth, don't be an animal, Sirius, his nanny used to say. He lifts his head, and smiles at Remus across the table. 

"I remembered something," he says.

Remus smiles back. "That's good. That's very good."

He remembers eating because he could, because it tasted good. Not because his stomach burned with emptiness, not because his teeth chattered with hunger. He remembers pie, sweet tart cherry and spicy warm pumpkin. He remembers the taste of sour and salt slipping across his tongue, he remembers wanting other things more than food.

Sometimes others come, sometimes others look in, sometimes others peer through the dark and they whisper where they think he cannot hear and they listen when he whispers back. Sometimes he hears other voices, sometimes he thinks he knows them, sometimes he thinks he forgot them and is only hearing the echoes.

And that I were where I would be then would I be where I am not but where I am there I must be and where I would be I can not can not can not. That I were me and I were free and then we and then he and no, no, it cannot be.

It cannot be.

It wasn't me.

Remember kissing and skiving off class to fuck on the floor and remember sleeping late stretched out in a sunbeam and remember laughing at nothing and everything when everything was nothing and our world was our skin, remember? He thought it was gone but it was there beneath the skin, and Remus touches him, Remus brings him back.

"It's not safe, not for much longer," Remus tells him one morning, and Remus is always right, Sirius remembers that, too.

His mind is a jumble of nonsense songs and he still can't sleep through the night, and he still can't taste strawberry or milk, and he still can't bring himself to leave. He knows what he has to do the same way he knows the colour of Remus' eyes but only can see them as black and white and grey. He knows what he has to do.

Hark, hark, the dogs do bark, the beggars are coming to town. Hark, hark, hide in the dark, a fat man is coming down down down into the dark. Down into the dark with a light for the dark, and look at his face, remember? Remember?

Remember. Remember. Sometimes they come and stare and sometimes they come and talk and the fat man he knows he knows but he doesn't know what he thinks he knows. He sees, he knows, he remembers photographs, he sees in newsprint colours and he sees he sees he sees. There once was a-

He sees. He knows. He remembers.

"Have you done with your newspaper, Minister?" he asks. "I... I do quite miss the crosswords."

Tell tale tit, your tongue shall be slit. And all the dogs in town, they shall have their little bit, shall eat every last little bit.


End file.
